Widow's Vengeance - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - Rescue

Once Harry had gotten back from school the first thing he was told to do was to get his little arse into the kitchen and make Dudley his after-school meal, apparently he wanted cereal now. Harry quickly complied, knowing things would be much worse if he didn't. Despite this, he didn't relax or un-tense. Until he was in his cupboard, he wasn't safe. Harry had long since learnt that the cupboard was his safe zone, as long as he was in there he wouldn't be seriously harmed.

Sure Dudley would sometimes drop dust on his head by jumping on top of the stairs and there was that time he got locked in here with a stink bomb - guess who did that? Forget your guess, whatever it might have been, the answer was Dudley - and he could get pulled out of the cupboard but for the most part it was his sanctuary, his safe-zone. And until he was inside it he had to stay alert. Harry knew from past experiences that just because they were not immediately shouting at him and hitting, didn't mean that they wouldn't shout at him and hit him later.

Once Harry had heated up Dudley's favourite cereal he brought it towards the dining table and placed it in front of Dudley who was sat there and already watching TV, not the regular TV, but the second TV that then Dursley's had set up so Dudley could watch while he was eating.

"Boy," Vernon barked from the living room. "come here." He ordered.

Harry cringed but did as he was told and entered the living room, once he was in he found himself being stared down by his Uncle Vernon who was sat in his favourite chair while his Aunt Petunia stood next to him and looked offended by the very sight of him.

"We've heard some bad things about you." Aunt Petunia began, Harry's mind began working overtime, trying to find ways to get out of the inevitable confrontation that was going to happen. "Dudley told us that he was trying to make friends with two new children at school and that you ruined it for him. What do you have to say for yourself?

Harry's answer had been on the tip of his tongue but he managed to stop himself before he spoke out loud. What did he have to say for himself? He knew what he wanted to say, he wanted to tell them that Dudley was being a dumb-dumb and ruined everything on his own...because he was a dumb-dumb, a rude one. But he also knew that that would just make things worse, calling Dudley dumb in front of Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would all but guarantee an ear shredding rant and a heavy handed beating.

"It was an accident." Harry said in a quiet voice as he bowed his head.

"Much like your birth, I'm sure." Uncle Vernon drawled, looking very pleased with himself, as if he had just said a very funny joke. "Come here, boy." He said, as he gestured for Harry to come closer. Harry was rooted in his spot, warring messages were shouting in his brain. One side would shout 'Stay back!' while the other side would shout 'obey, move forward! Quickly!'. "Boy," Uncle Vernon growled. "get over here, now." He said with a warning tone.

Harry gulped but moved forwards until he was right in front of his Uncle Vernon, Harry's uncle raised his hand before he slapped Harry on the top of his head. Harry had kept looking down, tears welled up in his eyes but he didn't react beyond that.

"You're lucky that I'm not giving you more of a beating right now," Uncle Vernon said. "luckily for you we've got some very important people coming over. I won't have you loitering about the house. Pet, call Figg, see if she can take the boy." Uncle Vernon grunted, he did not want the freak around and risk the little brat ruining his meeting with more of his freakishness. So he did what he always did when he wanted to have a meeting without the freak here, he dropped him off at the house opposite so the batty old woman called 'Figg' could take care of him.

"Of course." Petunia nodded and moved over to the phone, she picked it up and began calling Mrs Figg's house.

If anyone had looked inside of Mrs Figg's house then they would have found Mrs Arabella Figg unconscious on her chair while several cats were unconscious on the floor next to her, standing next to her telephone was none other than Clint and Natasha.

Natasha glanced at the sleeping form of Arabella Figg, Natasha knew that Figg was a squib - a man or woman born to a magical family but doesn't have magic - and she knew that at least most of these kittens were half kneazle (basically magical cats that were physically and mentally better than regular cats. They were the most difficult part of this plan, knocking out Figg would have been easy, but the large amount of kneazles would not have been, which was why the pair arrived early and released some homemade gas into her house. It wasn't toxic but it would knock them all out for a while. Natasha also knew that the only reason Mrs Figg was even here was to keep an eye on Harry for Professor Dumbledore.

On the one hand she could appreciate that this place was a place away from the Dursley's and that Figg had helped Harry before, but on the other hand she did not think that the old woman had done anywhere near enough to help him. Sure she had told Dumbledore a couple of times that Harry's life wasn't the nicest but in Natasha's opinion the woman could have done a lot more to help out Harry.

"There's the phone." Clint said when the phone began ringing.

"Alright," Natasha cleared her throat as she answered the phone. "hello?" She spoke in a near perfect imitation of Mrs Figg's voice, it was not perfect but more than good enough to be passable as far as untrained citizens like the Dursley's were concerned. The previous day Natasha had snuck into the back of Mrs Figg's house and managed to get a recording of the woman speaking, before she took it home and spent hours trying to copy it. Voice imitating would have been a lot easier if she was older.

"Mrs Figg?" Petunia Dursley's voice spoke.

"Ah hello," Natasha spoke, barely able to hide the anger in her voice or rather her copy of Arabella's voice. "how may I help you?" She asked.

"My husband and I have a very important business meeting today, we were hoping that you could take the boy for the day." She said.

"I'm afraid that I cannot," Natasha replied. "I have some very important thing to do myself."

"A...are you sure?" She said, sounding slightly more desperate.

"Yes, I am terribly sorry but I am just unable to do it today." She said before she ended the call. "Stupid horse bitch." She said in her normal voice.

"Are we done here?" Clint asked.

"We're done." Natasha confirmed. "Let's get out of here." She said, hoping her plan would work well. Natasha was adaptable, oh she was most definitely adaptable, in usual situations she could easily improvise. Right now she had several back up plans, and if worse comes to worse then she would just kill the Dursley's, hopefully Harry would forgive her.

"She can't take the boy." Aunt Petunia said in a worried voice as she turned to Vernon once the phone called.

"What?" Uncle Vernon blinked. "But what are we supposed to do with the freak?" He said, as if Harry wasn't even in the room.

"I don't know!" Aunt Petunia hissed. "We can't put him under the cupboard! What if they hear him?!"

"Let's just kick him out the house until they're gone." Uncle Vernon suggested, Harry was actually hoping that they would do that. If he ever had to choose between the options of being in a house with the Dursley's or walking alone in a dark street at night then he would chose the street anytime.

"We can't do that," Aunt Petunia sighed, of course ruining things for Harry, as usual. "what if someone sees him? Then we'd have to go and actually find him. I don't know...um...what if we just put him in the shed?"

"We can't! What if he ruins the shed?!" Uncle Vernon exclaimed. "I only painted the thing yesterday!" He added.

At that point Harry was really struggling not to say something, he was so very, very tempted to remind Uncle Vernon that while his Uncle had been watching TV, Harry was the one that had painted the shed and that it had taken him most of the day.

"Let's just stick him upstairs while they come and put him in Dudley's second room." Aunt Petunia suggested. The house had four bedroom in total, one bedroom where Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would sleep, another bedroom for Dursley, a spare bedroom for guests (mostly just Aunt Marge who was Uncle Vernon's sister), and a fourth bedroom that was mostly used to keep Dudley's toys in. Why was Harry sleeping in the cupboard again?

"That could work," Uncle Vernon nodded after a few moments. He turned his beady little eyes on to Harry. "boy, you go in the kitchen and make me and your aunt some tea, then once you're done you will go upstairs and stay in Dudley's second bedroom."

"I don't want him to play with my toys!" Dudley cried from the kitchen. Harry put a lot of effort into resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Dudley rarely ever played with those toys, Dudley kept all of the ones he was interested in in his first bedroom.

"He won't, will you boy?" Uncle Vernon said, giving him a look that warned him he had better have a good answer.

"No, Uncle Vernon." Harry said with a small headshake.

"Good, you can clean up the room while you're at it. Now go and make us tea." Petunia ordered.

"Yes, Aunt Petunia." Harry nodded before he headed into the kitchen.

Later that night the three Dursley were all dressed up and waiting for the arrival of their guests, they had rehearsed what they would do a few times. Vernon would greet the guests and then bring them into the living room where they would be greeted by Petunia and Dudley who would wow them with his brilliant manners.

"They're here, get into position!" Vernon hissed when he looked out the window and saw an expensive looking black car park outside. He quickly made his way over to the door, he waited and waited until he heard the sound of doorbell. He opened the door to greet his guests, in front of him was a brown haired man with blue eyes, he was wearing an expensive looking suit. And with him were his two children, one was a girl and the other was a boy. "Ah, please come in." Vernon said as he stepped to the side.

"Thank you, Mr Dursley." The man said as he and his kids stepped inside.

"Please, call me Vernon." Vernon said as he closed the door once they were all in.

"Vernon, then." The man nodded before he and the kids were guided inside the living room by Vernon.

"Ah, meet my wife Petunia and my son Dudley." Vernon said with a big smile.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr..." Petunia started but was interrupted by Dudley.

"You!" Dudley blinked as he looked at the two kids. Clint gave him an evil grin and a small wave.

"Dudley, don't be rude." Vernon admonished before pausing. "You know Mr Rushman's children?" He asked.

"Must be from school, my kids just started at the local school today." Mr Rushman said before he turned to his children. "Is he a friend of yours?" He asked.

"No." Clint scoffed.

"Daddy," Natasha spoke, looking as innocent as a girl her age could look. "I told you about him, he's the bully from school."

"Now, I think you're mistaken." Petunia said, after exchanging a worried glance with Vernon, she forced herself to keep smiling. "Our young Dudley is a very good boy."

"Natasha?" Mr Rushman asked, looking down at her.

"Now Matt, come on," Vernon began. "I..."

"I don't recall permitting you to call me by my first name, it is Mr Rushman as far as you are concerned, Vernon." Mr Rushman - whose first name was apparently Matt - said as he looked at Vernon with narrowed eyes, when it was clear that Vernon wasn't going to say anymore then he turned back to Natasha. "Go on dear." He said.

"Today at school I made friends with a boy named Harry then when me and Clint were playing with him, he..." She pointed at Dudley. "...came over and called Harry a freak and scared him away."

"Did he now?" Matt asked, a disapproving look came on his face.

"Now, wait a moment," Petunia interrupted. "Dudley is a good boy and..."

"Are you calling my daughter a liar?" This time it was Matt who interrupted.

"No, no, of course not." Vernon quickly spoke, sweat dripping down his forehead, this meeting really was not going the way that he had planned. "I'm sure that she was just mistaken." He added.

"Nah, he did call Harry a freak." Clint spoke up. "Where is Harry?" He suddenly asked. "I know he lives here." He added as he began looking around. "Hey," He said as he turned to Petunia. "do you mind if I go get a glass of water? I'm really thirsty."

"Um no...of course not." She said.

"Sweet." Clint said before he walked out of the room.

"Oh Daddy," Natasha spoke up. "can I go upstairs and play with Harry?" She asked in a hopeful voice.

"Where is this 'Harry'? I’d like to meet him." Mr Rushman asked as he looked at the Dursley's. When the two adult Dursley's were slow to answer he turned his gaze on to the youngest.

"Um...he...he's upstairs in my room." Dudley answered, not liking the way the man was looking at him. People were supposed to look at the freak like that, not him.

"Your room?" Mr Rushman repeated. "Why not his own?" He asked.

"I..." Uncle Vernon started, only to be interrupted.

"Hey Dad," Clint's voice called. "I think I found Harry's room."

"What?" Mr Rushman frowned and walked out of the living room, followed by Natasha and three paling Dursley's. Once they got into the hallway they saw Clint holding open the door to the cupboard under the stairs. Mr Rushman walked over and looked inside, his eyes widened when he saw a small cot with a fresh pillow, it looked like somebody was living in here. On the wall was a small piece of paper that said 'Harrys room', it had been drawn in crayons. "I think someone has some explaining to do." He said as he glared at the now deathly pale Dursley's.